Mike Nelson: The Asset Strippers

Artist Mike Nelson has created a major new site-specific installation for the spaces of the Duveen Galleries, at Tate Britain, London. “The Asset Strippers” merges disparate objects, mostly everyday items from the post-war Britain, such as knitting machines, graffitied steel awnings and doors from an NHS hospital, all leftovers of industry and infrastructure. The so-composed piece of work turns its neoclassical location into a sort of warehouse of monuments; the artist’s interest, in fact, lies not just in the plastic qualities of the selected materials but also in the social and cultural history behind them.
The project is the result of the annual Tate Britain Commission, initiated to invite contemporary artists to respond with their work to the setting of the Duveen Galleries.